1

2 3

Germany Selenus/Braunschweig Set c. 1780 King size: 3 ¾ in. Silver and silver-gilt Collection of Tom Gallegos

4 5

During the Enlightenment era, European and American scientists, philos-

ophers, and other thinkers questioned the status quo, promoting ideas

that would help shape today’s society. Intellectuals gathered in new public spac-

es—cafés, coffeehouses, salons, and masonic halls—to discuss new ideas. Some

challenged the power of monarchs and questioned organized religion. Many

thinkers promoted values of tolerance, interest in other cultures, rationalism,

and liberty. At the same time that there were challenges to the authority of the

monarchy, chess was transforming from a game played by the aristocracy to one

played by people of all social standings. Dare to Know: Chess in the Age of Reason

explores the history of the game during this period of remarkable change.

Chess, associated with knowledge, foresight, and strategy, became a favored

pastime of many of the era’s most famous thinkers, including Voltaire, Denis

Diderot, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in France. They took part in the lively so-

cial scene that existed in coffeehouses and places like the Café de la Régence,

a renowned chess center that attracted philosophes and the best chess players

of the era, including François-André Danican Philidor. Diderot described the

café in his 1805 book Rameau’s Nephew:

If it is too cold or wet I take shelter in the Café de la Régence and amuse myself

watching people playing chess. Paris is the place in the world and the Café de la

Régence the place in Paris where this game is played best, and at Rey’s the shrewd

Légal, the crafty Philidor and the dependable Mayot sally forth to battle. There the

most amazing moves can be seen and the poorest conversation heard, for if you can

be a man of wit and a great chess-player like Légal you can also be a great chess

player and an ass like Foubert and Mayot.

In the United States, founding father Benjamin Franklin (a 1986 inductee to

the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame) wrote one of the country’s first published chess

books. His essay The Morals of Chess (1786) explored how playing chess could

teach important qualities like foresight, circumspection, caution, and not

getting discouraged by difficult circumstances.

I n t roduc t ion

by Emily Allred, Curator

6 7

in a fire. The few remaining artifacts connected directly to the Turk will be

exhibited in Dare to Know courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Dare to Know: Chess in the Age of Reason showcases numerous chess sets, books,

artwork, and other artifacts representing Enlightenment centers in Europe

and the United States. The artifacts date from the 17th through 21st centuries

and are on view at the World Chess Hall of Fame courtesy of public and private

lenders from the United States and Europe including Phil Brykman, Jon Cru-

miller, Dr. George and Vivian Dean, OH Faber, Tom Gallegos, António Horta-

Osório, the Library Company of Philadelphia, Dr. Thomas H. Thomsen, and

Washington University Libraries’ Julian Edison Department of Special Collec-

tions. Chess sets belonging to famous historical figures from the era, including

Catherine the Great and Madame Tussaud will be displayed alongside chess

sets that would have been used by the average person in coffeehouses.

Among the highlights of the exhibition is a full set of Denis Diderot and Jean

le Rond D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et

des métiers (Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts).

In this subversive text, its creators sought to “collect all the knowledge that now

lies scattered over the face of the earth,” which included a section on chess.

On view courtesy of Tom Gallegos, the volumes will be shown alongside a

chess set made from a pattern within the publication. The Enlightenment was

the era when chess books were first widely distributed—several examples of

publications from the era will be on view as well as examples of other games

like playing cards and tarot.

The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities

of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened

by it, so as to become habits, ready on all occasions. For life is a kind of chess, in

which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend

with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some

degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it.

Franklin also described the pitfalls of his chess habits in the humorous

bagatelle A Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout. In the story, Franklin and

“Madame Gout” discuss the repercussions of his sedentary lifestyle. Madame

Gout chides him for playing chess rather than visiting the verdant gardens

in the regions of France where he was touring.

Walking in the beautiful gardens of those friends with whom you have dined

would be the choice of men of sense; yours is to be fixed down to chess, where you

are found engaged for two and three hours!...Wrapt in the speculations of this

wretched game, you destroy your constitution.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and an important

figure of the American Enlightenment, was also an enthusiastic chess player.

His family later recalled his passion for the game, and he received a chess set

as a gift from the French Court.

During the same period, the Mechanical Turk, a famous illusion, toured

Europe. Created by Wolfgang von Kempelen, the Turk debuted at the court

of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and was advertised as an automaton

that could play chess against human players. Though the Turk was actually

operated by a person inside a cabinet, it captured the imagination of its audi-

ences, and may have even inspired computer pioneer Charles Babbage (who

played against the machine in 1819) to think about machine intelligence in

new ways. The Turk later traveled to the United States, where it was destroyed

E m i l y A l l r E di n t r o d u c t i o n

8 9

France The Encyclopédie Set (various views)c. 1750-80King size: 4 in.WoodCollection of Tom Gallegos

Germany Folding Boxboardc. 17304 ¾ x 20 x 15 ¼ in.Wood and silverCollection of Tom Gallegos

10 11

Artist unknown, The Mechanical Turk, Date unknown, 4 x 6 x 5 5/16 in., Plastic and marble, Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame

Joseph Friedrich Freiherr von Racknitz, Racknitz Plate III: The Turk, 1789, Paper, Public domain

Germany, Kändler Chess Set, mid-18th century, King size: 3 7/8 in., Meissen porcelain, Collection of Dr. George and Vivian Dean

Italy, Virtue vs. Vice, c. 1700s, King size: 5 ½ in., Board: 20 x 20 in., Ivory and ebony, Collection of Dr. George and Vivian Dean

Italy, Italian Set, c. 18th or 17th century, King size: 3 ½ in., Wood, Collection of Tom Gallegos

Italy, Murano Glass Set, 18th century, King size: 3 ¼ in., Board: 13 ½ x 13 ½ in., Glass, Collection of Dr. George and Vivian Dean

Russia, Catherine the Great Chess Set, Late 1700s, King size: 3 in., Board: 15 x 15 x 2 in., Amber and ebony, Collection of Dr. George and Vivian Dean

12 13

Chess is often described as the game of kings. And it is. But there was a time

when chess was also the game of those who were throwing off their kings.

A time when chess was the game of dangerous radicals and revolutionaries,

writers and intellectuals; men and women who used coffeehouses, newspapers

and salons as we use the internet, to spread once-forbidden ideas and knowledge,

ideas that would ultimately shatter the old order and usher in the modern world.

In all the vast upheavals of the 18th century, chess was in the thick of things,

played in taverns and inns as well as royal courts, played by misfits and disaf-

fected intellectuals as well as kings and aristocrats. In 1784, some five years

before the storming of the Bastille, sapere aude was the motto applied to that

century by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in an essay analyzing and

defending the Enlightenment. Sapere aude translates as "dare to know," "dare

to be wise," or more loosely as, "dare to think for yourself."

SAPERE AUDE thus became the unofficial battle cry of the Enlightenment. It

is also good basic advice for any chess player.

The current exhibition at the World Chess Hall of Fame examines this fasci-

nating and little-understood era of chess history in depth for the first time,

covering roughly the years from 1700 through 1830. At the beginning of the

era, with few exceptions, chess was a game played primarily by kings and their

courtiers, as well as the clergy. By its end, people of all classes played in great

numbers, chess books began to be published more widely, and the saga of chess

in the 19th century had begun.

What caused such a drastic transformation in our beloved game? It was a natural

outgrowth of the Enlightenment, a phenomenon that likewise transformed so

much of the world. This exhibition includes material from the various regional

Enlightenments of Europe and America, but will focus primarily on that most

central Enlightenment—the French Enlightenment. Most historians define the

era as beginning in the early 18th century and ending sometime much later in

Tom Gallegos is an antiques collector and dealer, independent researcher, and self-taught anti-

quary. His greatest areas of interest are the history of Western Civilization before the Industrial

Revolution, the history of science, and the history of ideas. He has been a member of Chess

Collectors International since the 1990s, though he collects in many other areas as well, includ-

ing Greek, Roman, and Medieval antiquities, and also participates in other collecting societies

in areas such as playing cards, rare books, maps and prints, scientific instruments, and nautical

antiques. Though no longer active as a tournament player, he formerly held a US Chess Class A

rating, and still enjoys playing chess daily.

DA R E T O K NOWCh e s s i n t h e Ag e of R e a s on

A n ag e w h e n t h e g a m e of k i ng s f i r st be c a m e …

A G A M E OF T H E P E OP L E

by TOM GALLEGOS The Absentminded Antiquary

14 15

the century, usually with the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. Dare

to Know includes the Enlightenment as well as both the pre- and post-Enlight-

enment periods.

REINVENTING the WORLD—The ENCYCLOPÉDIE

It is impossible to discuss the Enlightenment without also discussing the famous

Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert. The most famous, revolutionary, and

subversive encyclopedia ever published, the lofty and audacious goal of the

Encyclopédie was nothing less than to gather together all human knowledge, and

yet at the same time, to fundamentally change the way people think.

But before all this, the Encyclopédie had set out to be, first and foremost, an en-

cyclopedia. (Indeed, scholars still rely on it for authoritative answers to many

historical questions related to 18th-century France). The Encyclopédie was the

work of its chief editor, the philosophe Denis Diderot, assisted by Jean Le Rond

d’Alembert and over 150 other authors, many toiling in obscurity. By far, the

most prolific author was the Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt, who wrote over 17,000

articles, or roughly a quarter of the entire Encyclopédie. Diderot himself wrote

well over 5,000 articles, the second-highest total.

To modern people, it may seem hard to believe that the writing of an encyclo-

pedia could be fraught with controversy. But this one was written by a unique

group of progressive intellectuals known as the philosophes, who could not

help but infuse their articles with high-minded concepts of tolerance, reason,

open-mindedness, and egalitarian political ideas, all of which posed a bold

and flagrant challenge to the authority of both Church and State. As a result,

the philosophes, or the encyclopédistes, as they came to be called, worked under

constant threat of censorship, arrest, and even worse.

An ENDURING MYSTERY: KNIGHT or BISHOP?

Chess is included in the Encyclopédie in two main places: First, in the fifth text

volume (1755), under the E’s (for échecs, the French word for chess), on page

dA r E t o K n o w

244, can be found the actual article about the game, written and signed by the

ever-prolific Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt.

And second, in the 9th plate volume (1771), lies an illustration of a chess set

that has fascinated and confused chess historians and collectors for some 250

years. The set appears here, not because it was considered important to show

what a chess set looked like, but merely because it was one of the typical prod-

ucts of a Tabletier, or toymaker. Known as an Encyclopédie set, or sometimes as a

Diderot set, few complete examples of this once-common set are still extant. It

also gave rise to later French chess set styles such as the Directoire and Régence.

The six different chess pieces are depicted in a sophisticated manner, giving

both elevation (side view) and plan (top view), in the manner of an architec-

tural drawing. One of the pieces, fourth from the left, is depicted as having

a top cut into a crude triangle. Many writers have pointed out that this crude

triangular cut was probably cheaper than employing a skilled carver to make

horses’ heads, the rest of the set being turned quite inexpensively on a lathe.

Though one might expect the piece to be a knight, other information in this

entry conflicts with this identification. On the comments page that precedes

this plate, the third piece from the left is referred to as the cavalier, or knight,

while the fourth piece from the left is dubbed the fou, or bishop. This does not

agree with how the pieces sit on the board at the start of play. There has been

tremendous debate over the years about this conundrum, but with access to a

genuine first edition of the Encyclopédie, I believe (with all due respect to those

who disagree) that I have solved it. The piece ordering on the comments page

is a typographical error—a misprint. The fourth piece from the left is indeed

the knight.

*For the reasons behind this conclusion, please consult the fuller and more complete

version of this essay on the WCHOF’s website.

to m G A l l E G o s

16 17

Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, The Encyclopédie (p. 106), 1751-1780, 16 x 10 ½ in., Paper, Collection of Tom Gallegos

PLAYERS of the WORLD, AWAKE! The RISE of the COFFEEHOUSE

You have all Manner of News there: You have a good Fire, which you may sit by as long

as you please: You have a Dish of Coffee; you meet your Friends for the Transaction of

Business, and all for a Penny, if you don't care to spend more.

Maximilien Misson (c. 1650-1722),

on the proliferation of London coffeehouses in the late 17th century.

Just as chess was the chosen game of the philosophes, coffee was their chosen

drink. Because of the way coffee tended to sharpen the wits rather than dull

them like alcohol, coffee was the obvious choice for all manner of thinkers,

writers, philosophes, encyclopédistes, scientists, academics, and everyone else intent

on living what we would now call a life of the mind.

Today it is almost impossible to find a decent chess coffeehouse anywhere in

the world; they have mostly gone the way of the dodo bird, or the Ancien Régime.

It was not always so. Once there were thousands of them. Every major city in

Europe and the Americas had countless options to choose from; there were

some 300 coffeehouses in Paris alone, most of them allowing or encouraging

chess and other sober games such as draughts. While many chess players today

have heard of the Café de la Régence, and perhaps Café Procope in Paris, these

were only the most famous.

Chess players today often tend to think of the Café de la Régence and places

like it merely as places where chess was played, but this is a woefully inadequate

view of history. If ever there was a place where world-shaking ideas flowed along

with the flow of the black brew, mingling with the gentle click of the pieces,

it was that venerable and much-mourned institution, the chess coffeehouse.

MYSTERIES of the AGES—CHESS AMONG the SECRET SOCIETIES

As can be seen on a ritual Masonic apron included in the show, the floor of

virtually every Masonic Temple has always been the chequered board, or chess-

dA r E t o K n o w

18

Louis Léopold Boilly Le Jeu des Échecs (A Game of Chess)Early 19th century13 11/16 x 19 4/16 in.Color lithographCollection of World Chess Hall of Fame

J.E. NilsonDas Schach Spiel (The Chess Game) 173012 5/8 x 16 5/16 in.AquatintCollection of the World Chess Hall of Fame

20 21

board pattern, of alternating black and white squares. The standard explana-

tion for this symbolism is usually that it is taken as an allegory of the eternal

opposition of life and death, or good and evil. (The philosophical term for

this is dualism). Coincidentally—or perhaps not—this is also the most common

historical interpretation given as to why the chessboard itself has alternating

light and dark squares.

The GHOST in the MACHINE—Von KEMPELEN’S TURK

Yesterday upon the stair

I met a man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

I wish, I wish he’d go away …

“Antigonish” by William Hughes Mearns (1875-1965)

“A man who wasn’t there” is an apt description of the greatest enigma of the

18th century, the famous chess-playing automaton known as the Turk. The

invention of Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734-1804), the Turk made its debut

at the court of Empress Maria Theresa in 1770. Nothing like it had ever been

seen before. It made for quite a spectacle, with its pantographic arm uncannily

moving the pieces, and its artificial voice box that could pronounce one word,

“Échecs! Échecs!” over and over, the Turk astonished audiences—including many

of Europe’s greatest minds—and made them believe that a machine really could

play chess and play it well.

Since about the mid-19th century, it has been common knowledge that this

was in fact a hoax, a mere magic trick, and that there was a human chess play-

er hiding inside the whole time. But this does not begin to do justice to the

effect, which, when done properly, can still amaze and stupefy even modern,

sophisticated audiences. Historians of magic consider the Turk to have been

the first great “cabinet illusion,” the term for making people and things appear

and disappear from such cabinets or closets.

to m G A l l E G o s

20 21

Switzerland, Tarot Cards of Marseilles, c. 1795-1825, 4 ½ x 2 ½ in., Paper, Collection of Tom Gallegos

22 23

The Turk spawned a veritable cottage industry of writers and thinkers who

corresponded with one another and published books speculating about von

Kempelen’s invention, or even claiming to expose its secrets. The modern com-

puter age was, in an important sense, born out of such speculations.

The original Turk was completely destroyed in a museum fire in 1854. In this

exhibition we include three artifacts, held by the Library Company of Phil-

adelphia, that are the only surviving relics from the original. They are the

traveling or “marine” chessboard (because pegged chessboards and sets were

often used at sea), probably the internal board used by the machine’s human

operator; a template or mask for allowing the human operator to perform

the knight’s tour, starting from any square on the board; and a leatherbound

booklet of endgame problems, all of which the automaton would win, since it

was stipulated to have the first move.

These three items were stored separately from the automaton, and thus escaped

the fire, probably because they are the human operator’s pocket aids, the equip-

ment carried in and out of the machine by the human player, so they would not

be lying around in view while the cabinet’s doors were being opened and closed

for the audience. They were kept pocketed to leave the operator hands-free, to

help lift himself in and around the hidden compartment, avoiding the view of

the audience before settling down to play a game. Once he did however, these

items would be taken out of his pockets, and become indispensable aids to stay-

ing oriented to what was happening on the main chessboard above his head,

thus enabling him to successfully play the games and perform the other feats.

The INFAMOUS LAW of SUSPECTS

We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now

in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason

and the people's enemies by terror.

Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794)

dA r E t o K n o w

Joseph Friedrich Freiherr von Racknitz Racknitz Plate IV, V & VII 1789 PaperPublic domain

to m G A l l E G o s

24

The first government of revolutionary France, called the National Convention,

issued a series of decrees aimed at cementing the gains of the Revolution against

any remaining royalists. These culminated in the decree of September 17, 1793,

known as the Law of Suspects, which outlawed any form of aiding, abetting,

or even sympathizing with, royals and the aristocracy. It explicitly stated that

anyone even suspected of having such sympathies was to be placed under

arrest. (Arrest in those days could quickly lead one to the guillotine). This

resulted in royal symbols and imagery of all kinds being frantically destroyed

and replaced throughout France and other areas of Europe that were coming

under French control.

In the world of games, this mainly affected chess sets and decks of playing cards.

Some figural chess sets, and most card decks had to be redesigned, with the

kings and queens having their crowns lopped off on the woodblocks used for

printing them, or completely redrawn and replaced with Phrygian caps (the cap

of liberty, or bonnet rouge). For example, one set in the exhibition was created

in Wallonia, which was annexed by France in 1795 as part of the War of the First

Coalition (the first attempt of the great powers of Europe to stop Napoleon).

The carver of this set may have replaced the royals to keep it in his inventory.

CONCLUSION

Dare to Know may mark the first time anywhere that a true first edition of the

En cyclopédie has ever been displayed alongside a rare Encyclopédie chess set. And

you will find many other important firsts and little-known stories from the En-

lightenment and the Revolutionary era here as well, some of which I have only

briefly sketched out in this document: The amber chess set of Catherine the

Great of Russia, and the chess set of Madame Tussaud, of wax museum fame,

who in her former life in France chronicled the worst excesses of the Revo-

lution, by making death masks for the victims of the Terror. The last-known

remnants of the infamous Turk. Memories of the most famous and important

of all the countless chess coffeehouses of the day, the Café de la Régence. Period

sets, boards, books and artifacts from all over Europe. And much more.

25

France, Paris Pattern Piquet Deck, c. 1790s, 3 ¼ x 2 ¼ in., Paper, Collection of Tom Gallegos

26 27

Dare to Know seeks to resurrect a lost world, the milieu of chess in the 18th and

early 19th centuries. So much of the chess history that we know focuses on the

later 19th and 20th centuries. Come and explore, and learn a bit about what

happened before all that. And as you do, remember to Dare to Know—dare to

think for yourself!

Denmark or Germany Danish/German Count of Elberfeld Chess Set c. 1750-1800 King size: 5 in.Ivory Collection of Tom Gallegos

dA r E t o K n o w

28 29

French French Miniature Encyclopédie Setc. mid-18th centuryKing size: 1 ½ in.Ivory Collection of Tom Gallegos

The NetherlandsDutch Turret Set c. 1775-1800 King size: 3 ½ in.BoneCollection of Tom Gallegos

France Directoire Setc. 1780-1800 King size: 3 ½ in.Boxwood and ebonyCollection of Tom Gallegos

England or the Continent Pulpit Set c. mid-18th to early-19th centuryKing size: 5 1/8 in.BoneCollection of Tom Gallegos

30 31

The World Chess Hall of Fame acknowledges Dr. Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield and Rex Sinquefield, whose generous support makes our exhibitions possible. Special Thanks to: Tom Gallegos and Luann Woneis, Phil Brykman, Jon Crumiller, Dr. George and Vivian Dean, John Hartmann, Diane Lefebvre, Rachel D’Agostino and Jennifer Rosner of the Library Company of Philadelphia, António Horta-Osório, Dr. Thomas Thomsen, Cassie Brand and Jessi Cerutti of Washington University.

Curated by Emily Allred, Curator, World Chess Hall of Fame, with Tom Gallegos.Dare to Know: Chess in the Age of Reason essay by Tom Gallegos was edited by John Hartmann.

Mind. Art. Experience.Related programming and a pdf of this brochure are available for download at worldchesshof.org. Donations support our exhibitions, education, outreach, and events. World Chess Hall of Fame4652 Maryland Avenue, Saint Louis, MO 63108 (314) 367-WCHF (9243) | worldchesshof.org @WorldChessHOF #DareToKnowChess

The mission of the World Chess Hall of Fame is to educate visitors, fans, players and scholars by collecting, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting the game of chess and its continuing cultural and artistic significance.

The Museum does not discriminate or permit harassment or discrimination on the basis of gender, race, color, national and ethnic origin in the treatment of individuals with respect to employment, or admission or access

to Museum facilities, programs or activities.

Dare to Know: Chess in the Age of Reason © 2020 WCHOF. All rights reserved

Cover Images: Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (detail), 1830, Courtesy of Erich Lessing Culture

and Fine Arts Archive England. Old English Ivory Set, 1760, Collection of Jon Crumiller.

Photography by Carmody Creative

WCHOF STAFF

General ManagerJoy Bray

Chief CuratorShannon Bailey

CuratorEmily Allred

Administrative & Curatorial AssistantBrittany Mosier

DevelopmentLauren StewartRyan Chester

Education, Outreach & EventsRebecca BuffingtonTara MeyerSarah Walters

Exhibitions ManagerNick Schleicher

FinanceNorah FrielCathy Gallaher

Gallery ManagerMatt Dauphin

Graphic DesignSam WatkinsAidan Douglas

Installation & ResearchJim GildehausAlexa ClavijoSteven CoplinJames KnappSarah WaltersChelsea AderaSloan BrunnerChristine CooperErin KingAdam PresswoodRachel Thompson

IT SpecialistsErik ArnsonJesse Richardson

PR & MarketingBrian Flowers

Q BoutiqueBrian FlowersMac HoltsclawLuke Byrnes

RegistrarNicole Tessmer

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